“Starcups Workers Unite!” — Students Learn Their Workplace Rights
Students put on their props — ties, union stickers, lanyards, name tags. The room was full of laughter and last-minute reminders. The town hall meeting was about to begin, and groups were settling in to discuss the unit’s central question: Should the Starcups workers at Store 867 vote to be a union?
It was day three at the Los Angeles area Gardena High School in Mr. Martinez’s Law and Society class. Jazmin Rivera and Emely Rauda from the UCLA Labor Center and I had worked with students to prepare them for a simulation of a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union election based on the Starbucks Workers United organizing over the last few years.
The power of this role play comes from the lived realities of young workers. One of the students in the room was a Starbucks employee at a very busy location close to Los Angeles International Airport. Every single student in the room had working adults at home. These students would be getting jobs sooner rather than later and the conversations we were having could not be more relevant. Students seemed eager to engage around the daily experiences of individuals and groups in our economy. We gave students the space and support to practice talking about workplace issues with co-workers, public servants, employers, and community members.
Over the last few years Starbucks workers have led an organizing movement that started in Buffalo, New York. There are now more than 500 unionized Starbucks stores across the nation. As with almost all workers attempting to unionize, Starbucks workers faced many obstacles in their fight to win their union and bargain a first contract. Workers have had their hours cut and been fired as punishment for unionizing. A June 2024 Supreme Court ruling makes it even harder for NLRB agents to help workers enforce their rights in the face of union busting tactics. Despite all this, Starbucks employees are among the more notable groups of the newest generation of workers, alongside auto workers in the South, fighting to utilize their power to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Preparing for the Role Play
At Gardena High School, students were playing one of five roles: non-union workers, union workers, community members, corporate managers, or NLRB agents. Mr. Martinez chose student groups ahead of time to create balanced teams of five. Students collaborated in their groups with self-assigned responsibilities such as facilitator, recorder, manager, and timekeeper. The non-union workers were the largest group in the room, divided into opening, midday, and closing shifts.
I started by drawing on students’ existing knowledge about unions, corporations, and communities through charts and readings. We began by creating class definitions for the terms union, management, and town hall. We examined the dramatic decline of union membership from 1955 to 2021 and considered the reasons behind the change. Students received background reading about the history of the National Labor Relations Act, reviewed a profile of the Starcups Corporation, and learned about Starcups Workers United. We gave students two days to develop their character within their group role through writing and conversation. Groups received texts with reading guides to help develop their characters’ arguments for a presentation and dialogue.
As they read, students playing the Starcups Workers United members learned that the “power of the union is strength in numbers” when standing up to a company that had just “announced a record profit of $32.3 billion for 2022 with an 8 percent increase in profit over the last year.” The group representing Starcups Corporate read that the company’s “deep commitment to ethical and sustainable capitalism had made it a model in the service industry.” The neighborhood customers in the community members group learned about “rumors that Starcups shut down cafes” after workers joined the union. The non-union Starcups workers group discussed how “there never seems to be enough people scheduled” to keep the workplace safe and efficient. The group of NLRB agents reviewed the agency’s history, purpose, and role in identifying unfair labor practices in the organizing workplace.
Students wrote first-person narratives for the first 25 minutes of day two using the prompt “Introduce yourself. Use your real name, but the rest you can imagine from the perspective of your role. How old are you? What is your work experience and family situation? What do you enjoy about working at Starcups? What is challenging? What needs to be changed? What do you feel might be gained by becoming a union member? What might you lose? Provide ideas, feelings, and examples.”
At Gardena, Iris from the closing shift Starcups group wrote:
I am 26 years old and have two kids. We live with my parents and younger brother. I have worked at Starcups for two years but I’ve been at this one for a few months. I had to transfer to a different store because the other one was too far away from my house. I am very happy at this store except there are never enough people. The midday shift is usually too busy to clean and when I come in, it’s a mess. The closing shift has to clean the whole store every night while still helping customers. . . . I hope that being in a union will help me get more hours and a raise. I don’t know how long it will take before things will get better.
We asked students to share their narratives within their groups. We could hear laughter and appreciation from the tables as they read out loud. Writing and sharing these narratives helped build a sense of identity that could be drawn upon during the questions and comments portion of the simulation.
I talked with groups and encouraged students to dig deeper for juicy details in the reading as they wrote their character texts, presentations, and questions for the town hall meeting. Groups created an introduction to explain their connection to Starcups company and the employees on the verge of voting in the NLRB election. They prepared a statement from their character’s perspective on the simulation’s central question: Should the workers at this Starcups store vote to be a union? We asked groups to also build a list of three questions to ask the other participants in the town hall. Finally, students wrote a closing statement to make toward the end of the meeting.
At the start of the third day, we asked students to split their groups in half with some people staying at their table and the others traveling around the room. They were directed to discover who in the room might be their allies and who might challenge their thinking. This part of the lesson continued to build student confidence in articulating their character’s perspective. Students then adjusted their presentations and questions based on what they learned in these quick conversations. This moment felt and sounded a little chaotic as students walked from table to table running into both allied and opposing viewpoints. Students seemed excited to begin the simulation.
Simulating a National Labor Relations Board Meeting
Once the teams circled up and sat down, we started the meeting. Groups sat in a large circle with identifying placards and props. During the first round, spokespeople answered the introductory questions: Who are we and why are we here? Two students from each group shared their character’s backstory and connection to Starcups.
In Mr. Martinez’s room, the non-union opening shift spokesperson Maritza talked about the lack of proper training and adequate staffing that led to problems for the midday shift. Ray from the Starcups Workers United members declared that Starcups was making billions and could afford to pay people more while telling the room that the corporation could no longer scare them. Tristan and Natalie from the community members group worried about both potential cost increases with unionization and worker safety without a union contract. Petero, who represented Starcups Corporate, pointed out that the company was like a family and that a union might get in the way of workplace relationships. The last group to speak were the NLRB agents; they took command of the room.
Sydney came out swinging. She called out Starcups Corporate for engaging in unfair labor practices and told the Starcups managers they could not hold captive-audience meetings to tell workers to vote no in the election. She declared that any harassment of union supporters could result in penalties. Sydney pointedly reminded the non-union workers and Starcups Corporate that the NLRB was there to protect workers’ rights.
During the second round, student groups addressed the big question: Should Starcups Store 867 employees become members of Starcups Workers United? The unionized workers called on the non-union employees to join them in the struggle for fair wages, benefits, and respect.
“Don’t let the union come between us,” Petero from Starcups management told the non-union workers. “We have promised higher wages, and we will listen to your requests. You don’t want to pay dues to a group that can’t guarantee you anything.”
“We want better for our families,” responded Flavia from the opening and midday shifts. “Even though some of us are students without children of our own, there are many of us who are single parents. We deserve to make enough money and still have time to see our family.”
“Union dues are going to be taken out of our paycheck,” worried the closing shift spokesperson Raul. “When will we get a raise and better benefits?”
It was a fast-moving back-and-forth that needed some light facilitation to make space for broader participation. During the conversation, I kept an eye on the clock to guarantee that we could complete the simulation and hold a meaningful debrief.
For the third round, student groups asked each other questions and made final comments about how the non-union workers should vote.
“Do you understand what happens during a strike?” Starcups manager Adrian asked the non-union workers.
“We know what will happen if we keep on working without being a union,” Flavia from the opening shift fired back at him. Natalie wondered if the company would still support building a new parking structure to accommodate the increased neighborhood traffic once the store went union. Petero told her there was no guarantee for what would happen if the workers voted yes.
“How can you tell us you will have to increase the cost of coffee if we are union when the company made a record profit last year?” asked Iris from Starcups Workers United. The rest of her group cheered and Starcups Corporate just shook their heads.
Finally, the NLRB agents gave the non-union workers ballots for the election. Once all the non-union workers voted, the NLRB agents announced the results. At Gardena, the final vote was 9-1 to be a union shop. There was a round of applause and hollering celebrating the win. Students do not always vote to be a union, but when it happens there is always a lot of excitement.
After the vote, we watched a news report on Starbucks organizing. The classroom — lively with conversation and laughter just three minutes ago — went silent. Students were surprised that fired Starbucks workers had not yet been given their jobs back despite the NLRB’s support. I asked students to reflect on how their simulation experience connected to the real-world efforts of organizing workers with questions like “What are the obstacles to organizing a union?” “Who is responsible for the obstacles workers face when organizing?” “What can be done to make certain that workers are more easily able to engage in the union organizing and election process?”
Students compared a chart from our first day of learning showing the steady decline of union membership in the United States over the last four decades to other charts that illustrated the incredible uptick in union elections and strikes over the last couple years.
“What do these new charts help us understand about workers and unions today?” I asked. Students talked about how there are no guaranteed wages and working conditions without a union contract in place. They discussed the power of workers coming together to make change for themselves. We talked about the role of consumers in the struggle for unionizing and winning a first contract.
Lingering students talked about how much more they wanted to say in the town hall meeting after the bell rang. These young people were in middle school during the 2019 UTLA teachers’ strike, watched university students go on strike last school year, and spent the 2023 summer witnessing the picket lines of SAG-AFTRA, UNITE HERE, and the WGA. This simulation, and others like it from the Young Workers Education Project, allow students to make sense of these movements and the underlying forces driving workers onto the streets.
In this role play, our conversations were about the issues facing workers at service jobs, the challenges of organizing a union, and the complexities of our economy’s obsession for ever-increasing profit margins that come with a very human cost. Students walked away with a deeper understanding of their rights as workers and the incredible organizing at some of the most ubiquitous global corporations.
As a former union organizer, I am familiar with the struggle of folks trying to even get to the point of holding an NLRB election at their workplace. As a veteran social studies teacher, I see the deep value in students engaging with this experience as they learn history, economics, and civics. More than 20 years ago, Linda Tubach and Patty Litwin developed the Collective Bargaining Education Project, a curriculum that directly addressed issues of power, justice, and conflict resolution in the workplace. Their thick binder of innovative pedagogy brought history and modern issues to life through rigorous simulations and role plays. As director of the Collective Bargaining Education Project, now known as the Young Workers Education Project, I turned to refreshing their curriculum. The Starbucks workers inspired this first new NLRB election simulation.
While writing this learning activity, I worked with a group of veteran teachers and newer facilitators who provided insights and offered additions that enriched the simulation. Most classroom teachers work in self-protective or system-created silos that prevent this type of collaboration from happening at our school sites. Professional development for teachers typically happens far away from our classrooms. Working with this team of educators was exciting and reminded me of the incredible work that can be done when we have the time and support to braid together content, skills, and joy for student learning.
This is critical learning. Our students deserve to know their rights as workers. They deserve access to the resources that will support their safety and fair treatment. Simulations and role plays give students a taste of the conflicts they may experience as employees or management with the concrete knowledge and practice to address these issues. The Young Workers Education Project is an example of how we can create brilliant moments of play that allow students to build courage, engage in rigorous thinking, and have the tough conversations that can lead to progress.
The Young Workers Education Project has also developed a five-day learning cycle to support implementation of AB 800, a new California law passed in October 2023. AB 800 requires all California secondary schools to educate students seeking work permits, along with junior year and senior year students, about their rights in the workplace. It is the culmination of decades of work by educators and labor leaders. Young people — particularly young people of color and immigrant youth — are vulnerable at their jobs, especially given the rising number of child labor violations in various industries.
The five-day AB 800 learning cycle is intended for teachers and students to use during Workplace Readiness Week, a component of AB 800 scheduled during the first week of May. The learning cycle poses a series of five questions to students: Why do workers have rights? What are the rights of workers? How were those rights established? What happens if these rights are violated? How do workers protect and enforce these rights?
The lessons draw upon existing resources available at the California Federation of Teachers’ website, the UCLA Labor Center, and the role plays and simulations of the Young Workers Education Project. The week ends with students creating memes based on their learning to share on school social media accounts to inform younger students and the wider community about their rights in the workplace.
Thank you to the following teachers and facilitators for their feedback on the Starcups Workers United simulation: LAUSD classroom teachers Rabiya Kassam-Clay and Layla Santizo along with UCLA Labor Center educators Janna Shadduck-Hernandez, Jazmin Rivera, Emely Rauda, and Abbie Cohen.
For teaching materials related to this article, click below:
Starcups Canva Deck
Starcups Instructions and Handouts
